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Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2023; 71(06): 433
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1772744
Editorial

Down Peer-Less Street

Markus K. Heinemann
1   The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon, Universitätsmedizin Mainz, Mainz, Germany
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Tucked away behind London's Moorfields Eye Hospital on City Road close to Old Street Station is a narrow lane called Peerless Street. For an Editor, this name evokes an ambiguous meaning: “without comparison” being the standard one and “having no-one to review” being the more idiosyncratic one. Both make you ponder…

Peerless Street hosts the Old Fountain Pub and ends at Bath Street, which gives some clues regarding its unusual name. Three centuries ago, there were no houses but open land with a pond that apparently was dangerous to swim in, because it was known as “Perilous Pond.” It was finally sealed off and converted into one of the first public luxury swimming baths. The name thus no longer seemed appropriate and was changed to “Peerless” because there really was hardly another bath like it in the whole of England. With the rapid growth of the city and the social decline of the area, the baths were finally closed in 1869, filled in, and built upon. Apart from the street names, not a trace of water remains. In fact, it is very hard to imagine open-air merriness in these down-to-earth, dense inner-city surroundings. So much for meaning number one.

Strolling down this lane as an Editor, however, primarily brings meaning number two to mind. Peerless Street reminds one of two recent publications in Nature,[1] [2] documenting the decline of the peer-review system so essential for editorial daily work and the quality of a journal. According to these reports, the willingness of academics to perform peer review for good on top of countless other daily duties is shrinking rapidly. When asked which activities they reduced most, peer review ranked second behind attending conferences, with senior researchers being the most reluctant ones.[2] An analysis by Clarivate, which runs the Scholar One platform also used by this journal, showed that “the average rate at which scientists accept a review dropped from 37.5% in 2020 to 32.3% in 2022.”[1] This is really bad news. Luckily, cardiothoracic surgeons still fare better than that, but even in our community the “thanks, but NO thanks” answer is becoming more popular.

In order to make the ordeal of reviewing more attractive, Thieme has introduced the Publons platform, since 2017 also managed by Clarivate, on which reviewers can at least get official academic credits. It seems to be underutilized, however, probably because it needs yet another registration process requesting personal data. The Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeon is therefore also experimenting with alternative ways of peer review such as the Select Crowd Review mode. We shall print-publish our 1-year experience shortly.[3]

Regardless of all these efforts, we remain dependent on motivated colleagues, including more junior career staff, willing to perform reviews. Anybody interested is welcome to contact the Editor, specifying areas of interest and publication/review experience. A constant if moderate expansion of our reviewer pool has so far enabled us to keep the individual burden relatively low. Even an occasional contribution helps, and the educational effect of performing a review for the reviewer must not be underestimated. We learn from everything we read, even if it is below standard.

Another path being explored and extended at the moment by the publisher is that of offering reviewer training schemes. With all these efforts and your support, we remain confident that our journal will not stumble down dark Peer-less Alley for the time being.



Publication History

Article published online:
05 September 2023

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